MEMORY, JUSTICE AND THE
"DIGNITY OF IRAQ"

By Louis Rene Beres

Memory, not forgetfulness, lies at the heart of justice. But
it is on certain anniversaries, even more than on other days,
that memory should be deeply honored. Failing to remember, entire
nations and peoples, not merely individuals, can stumble blindly
into the abyss. It should come as little surprise, therefore,
that the absence of memory can lead directly to the next war.

The Gulf War ended when Iraq formally accepted all coalition
terms for a permanent ceasefire on March 3, 1991. Although
elimination of all Iraqi weapons of mass destruction facilities
was an integral part of the ceasefire agreement, Saddam Hussein
continued after the war to enlarge such facilities and to
disguise this effort from U.N. inspectors. Now, on the seventh
anniversary of this important agreement, the U.N. Security
Council, following the ill-conceived advice of the
Secretary-General, has entered into another agreement with
Baghdad. Ignoring memory and justice, this agreement will
assuredly create conditions for a catastrophic unconventional war
in the Middle East, a war that will originate with Saddam
Hussein.

Kofi Annan asks that U.N. members "respect the dignity of
Iraq." THE DIGNITY OF IRAQ? Where was this
"dignity" when Iraqi forces called upon their Kuwaiti
neighbors in early August 1990? Here is an example of this
"dignity," recorded by the U.S. 199th Judge Advocate
Detachment in its official Report on Iraqi War Crimes (January 8,
1992): "The evidence establishes that there were at least
two dozen torture sites in Kuwait City....The gruesome evidence
confirms torture by amputation of or injury to various body
parts, to include limbs, eyes, tongues, ears, noses, lips and
genitalia. Electric shock was applied to sensitive parts of the
body (nose, mouth, genitalia); electric drills were used to
penetrate the chest, legs, or arms of victims. Victims were
beaten until bones were broken, skulls were crushed, and faces
disfigured. Some victims were killed in acid baths. Women taken
hostage were raped repeatedly. Eyewitnesses described the murder
of Kuwaitis by Iraqi military personnel who forced family members
to watch. Eyewitnesses reported Iraqis torturing women by making
them eat their own flesh as it was cut from their bodies. Other
eyewitness accounts describe Iraqi execution of Kuwaiti civilians
by dismemberment and beatings while victims were suspended from
ceilings (with axes)....."

THE DIGNITY OF IRAQ? Where was this
"dignity" while Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles directly
into Israeli neighborhoods, not the collateral damage of
permissible armed force, but deliberate crimes of war and crimes
against humanity? Where was this "dignity" when Iraq
fired missiles into Saudi Arabia, or when it gassed and burned
its own Kurdish and Shiite civilian populations before, during
and after the Gulf War?

The Secretary General has got it all wrong! Justice in this
region requires memory, and memory reveals that heinous Iraqi
crimes were not only left unpunished, but that such crimes have
now been allowed to recur well into the future. Some of these
crimes, such as the unprecedented and intentional dumping of
millions of barrels of Kuwaiti and Saudi oil into the Gulf and
the simultaneous torching of Kuwaiti oli wells, may ultimately
impact us all, even in Europe and North America. It is not the
dignity of Iraq that needs to be respected here, but the dignity
of the victims of the murderous Iraqi regime, victims both past
and future.

Where is the memory of Iraqi crimes against Israel and against
Iraq's own defenseless Jewish populations? Iraq has launched
aggression against Israel on several occasions. Baghdad sent
significant expeditionary forces in the 1948 War of Independence,
in the 1967 Six Day War and during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
During the 1948 War, Iraqi forces entered TransJordan and engaged
Israeli troops in Western Samaria. After the 1967 War Iraqi
forces, which had been deployed in Jordan, remained there for
more than two years. During the 1973 War, Iraq committed about
one-third of its then 95,000 man armed forces to aid Syria in its
campaign of aggression on the Golan Heights.

Within Iraq today, perhaps a few dozen Jews remain of a
community that had numbered about 135,000 in 1948. During World
War II, following violent anti-Jewish harangues by the Mufti of
Jerusalem, hundreds of Jews were slaughtered by frenzied mobs in
June 1941. After the war, in August 1948, Zionism was officially
declared a crime by the Government of Iraq ( a declaration
entirely in violation of the international law of human rights)
and hundreds more Jews were imprisoned and hanged on the streets.
After the 1967 War, very large numbers of Jews were accused of
spying for Israel, and publicly hanged before enormous and
jubilant crowds. The largest of these celebration hangings took
place on January 27, 1969.

THE DIGNITY OF IRAQ? The Secretary
General has got it all wrong. What is needed, immediately, is
justice for Iraq's many victims, and justice demands memory of
their dignity. On the seventh anniversary of the end of the Gulf
War, it is this memory that is indispensable and it is this
memory that should now offer a warning of what could soon happen
again.

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LOUIS RENE BERES is Professor of
International Law, Department of Political Science at Purdue
University was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971), and is the
author of many books and articles dealing with international
relations and international law.